


Star

by nerrin



Category: Fate/Grand Order
Genre: Canon Compliant, Inktober 2018, M/M, Spoilers, Spoilers for Lostbelt 1, i didn't actually do any legitimate historical research for this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-09-01 07:15:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16760470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerrin/pseuds/nerrin
Summary: A part of him had hoped that Amadeus would stay that way - dazzling, radiant, and always out of reach.





	Star

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written fanfiction in basically years but here I am, dying, because these two are like this. LB1 and Oniland murdered me, thanks FGO.

Antonio Salieri was not the kind of man to easily forget.

He could still recall with eerie clarity the first time he heard Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart play. It was in the court of Joseph II, when the other man was yet little more than a child. The sky had been clear on that day. A crowd of curious onlookers had gathered around the little boy with his fancy clothes, as he sat before the piano centered in the chamber, radiating a confidence that betrayed his small frame.

When Amadeus put his fingers to the keys, Salieri felt something in his world shift. It was an imperceptible tilt in the balance that ordered his life as a student here in Vienna. Amadeus’ fingers flew across the ivory-white keys, threading out notes in a joyous cascade that reminded him of colors that he lacked the words to describe. Even to Salieri’s yet-polished ears, he could discern the charm that endeared so many to the child. There was a precision to Amadeus’ playing, in the same way that the household maid would go through the day’s laundry, sharp and practiced.

There was talent.

Salieri stood there for the rest of the short performance, watching the boy from between the tall shoulders of well-dressed guests. The sound of Amadeus’ music lodged itself like a knife pushed between the bones of his ribcage, a cacophony settling deep in the recesses of his heart.

  
  
  
  
  


Salieri had expected to see Amadeus in Vienna again much sooner, but life did not always go the way that you would have liked it to. He was busy with his new position as court composer, finding little time to look up between penning new concerti or operas for an increasingly whimsical audience. Amadeus was still new to Vienna, unsure if he would stay for more than a couple of years, though he was eager to explore and expand his name in the Austrian capital. Vienna was where romance took form as a dreamlike symphony of laced petticoats and dramatic strings. Any aspiring musician seeking to be at the forefront of musical change seemed to converge in the same weathered buildings and walk the same old streets.

They talked, sometimes. You had to speak to your colleagues every once in awhile, Salieri thought. It was unavoidable, and the connections would do you good.

Amadeus had laughed and teased him about the restrictions that came with working for the court, which Salieri defended fiercely. The Emperor was a dear friend, and kept him in paid employment. Amadeus had shrugged, called him something incredibly vulgar, then stole an entire tray of chocolate-coated sweets on his way out.

The next day, Salieri received an invitation to one of Amadeus’ new operas. It was the opening night that evening.

Salieri pocketed the lettered invite wordlessly. He strode from the music chambers of the court to the polished, slightly excessive private quarters that he had been provided, shutting the door behind himself. There, he stood in front of the mirror, bringing out again Amadeus’ invitation, reading over the inked words once more.

 _It’s tonight_. Salieri could hear the cadence of Amadeus’ voice even in his written words.

Unbidden, his mind pulled up the haunting memory of Amadeus as a child - there he was again, at the piano. His fingers were longer now, and his legs actually touched the pedals properly this time. But the same vibrant, enchanting energy was still alive in every last note that Amadeus would transpose from his mind unto parchment paper. He built empires of harmony with the same effortless ease with which he laughed, a light sound that seemed to fit his careless manner and the frivolous curls of his long hair.

Salieri folded away the invitation to the opera. Amadeus hadn’t needed to ask - he would go.

  
  
  
  
  


It became clearer with the passing of years that all at once he understood too much, yet still too little.

The public was deaf to Amadeus’ genius. What Salieri had understood the instant he heard the other man play - the operas that Amadeus would go on to put up; those too were touched by the grace of God - no one else around him seemed to have had the same epiphany. It was as if he had gone to see the same opera as the crowd, but had ended up watching something entirely different in the same hall, upon the same stage. Amadeus’ compositions overwhelmed him each time he attended, and he attended so many.

How could he not? Salieri had been captive since the day they met. Amadeus’ music compelled him to reach out to him, to consume his talent, to _understand_ wholly the mysterious abyss from which those ideas and pieces poured out in an unending stream.

Yet at the same time, he repulsed him. Everything about Amadeus was far too blinding. From the way his grey eyes narrowed when he smiled at Salieri, to the faint hint of red that would flash through his irises when he became enraptured in the fervor of a new composition. Salieri understood the sheer extent of Amadeus’ genius when everyone else would laugh mockingly and call him a fool - they were wrong, Salieri thought angrily, but they were also right. Amadeus was too wild, too callous, his gift too much a burden for the common man to gaze upon.

It frustrated him, but not as much as his own desire to remain by Amadeus’ side.

That desire did not change, even when he one day chanced upon, in that empty opera hall, in the quiet hours of evening after a long, draining rehearsal - Amadeus was there, alone, after all the actors and stagehands had packed up and left.

Salieri had been compelled to visit on a whim, to see how Amadeus’ latest opera was coming along. Even if no one else truly did, he alone looked forward to it with a genuine emotion that surprised himself. His feet brought him to the shadows of the curtains by the stage, from which he would have exited from, had he not caught sight of Amadeus by the grand piano. There was one here, an impressive beast that had been wheeled to rest at centerstage.

Salieri froze where he stood.

For all his exuberance in public and his loud behavior at social gatherings, Amadeus now was subdued in contrast. There was none of the usual life and vigor in his strained expression. The skin beneath his eyes was dark. An emotion spread in Salieri’s chest, bothersome and hot. He couldn’t quite place the look that Amadeus wore as his hands hovered over the piano, fingers trembling just above the keys. There was hesitance there, an uncertainty and weakness that he would never usually associate with Amadeus’ bold ways.

Alone in the shadowed hall, surrounded by rows of empty seats that stretched up to the ceiling, Amadeus suddenly seemed very small.

It felt wrong to be here, as though he had intruded into a private moment, but Salieri could do nothing. He could say nothing.

He only watched as Amadeus let his hands fall from the piano, bringing them up instead to cover his face. The composer hunched over where he sat, the curls of his long blond hair framing his entire person in the dark. Salieri could no longer glimpse the expression that Amadeus wore, but the violent churning in his stomach, slow and thick, made it clear that he did not want to know either.

The air in the opera hall grew heavy and oppressive with each passing second. He could not remain here.

Salieri left as quickly and as quietly as he could, something white-hot now nestled together with the unease in his gut. It burned through him, becoming fuel for his action, and he quickened his pace home.

He was angry, Salieri realized the instant he slammed his front door shut behind him and swept his folder of scores from the dining table to the floor. Angry, because no one understood - or dared _try_ to understand - the unspoken battles that Amadeus had fought to be where he was. He dared not claim that he was familiar, because Amadeus had always hated placing a label on their relationship (were they business rivals, friends or something else?), but he knew enough of the man to know that the last few years had not been kind. He had struggled with something dark and horrible that Salieri did not understand. He could never understand, because Amadeus would look up from the piano in his home and wave him away with an easy smile each time he thought to ask.

That same darkness had been with Amadeus in the empty opera hall, and Salieri was angry at his own powerlessness to do anything about it.

  
  
  
  
  


“ _What have you done to him?_ ”

Salieri could only utter the words that sprang immediately to mind. Even now, he was unable to do anything. He had been too late. Rage and horror fought to overwhelm him in turn, quashing the initial drive that had propelled him here to see Amadeus - he wanted to flee, yet his feet seemed melded into the frozen floor, locked in place. The sight in front of him was far worse than any massacre. Here in the cold, lonely space that was the Tsar’s private chambers, Amadeus had played his music without rest. For weeks and months, without pause.

There was no audience here worthy of a three-month long recital like that.

“Even your footsteps sound so proper.” Amadeus snorted, unmoving where he sat. He looked a fright, possibly worse than when he’d been sick on his deathbed during his first lifetime. “I knew you’d get here eventually.”

The impassioned threats dissipated instantly from Salieri’s mind. “You -”

“It was my own choice, Salieri. Don’t sulk about it.”

Salieri opened his mouth to retort at Amadeus’ attitude - still so flippant, even in the face of a slow death as his spirit gradually fell to pieces - but the other composer raised a single hand, silencing him.

“Listen,” Amadeus laughed, his eyes searching Salieri’s face for an answer. “There’s something I need from you. Only you can do it for me.”

“...What is it?”

Amadeus motioned to the instrument by his side. A grand piano, an odd implement in a harsh land where the people had no need for such entertainment. All the Yaga cared about was the bare necessities for surviving into the next day. They hadn’t the luxury of music.

“I would’ve liked to stick around a bit more, but my time’s up. What a bother.” Amadeus’ voice was softer now. His eyes narrowed in annoyance as he glanced down to his fingers, which were little more than shriveled appendages by this point. “Don’t let the Tsar awake. It doesn’t matter how you play - there isn’t a soul capable of reaching my level, obviously, but our audience lacks the ear for such difference.”

Salieri paused. He should have felt indignant at the insult, but a part of him was already resigned that that was just who Amadeus _was_. His talent and charm both intrigued and annoyed him. It had been this way for as long as Salieri could remember.

His irritated growl in response was cut short when Amadeus leant forward and placed his hands on either side of his face. It seemed to take him no small amount of effort, and Salieri found himself unconsciously shifting, bending down slightly to accommodate Amadeus where he sat on the piano chair.

“I have one personal request,” Amadeus said. His voice was uncharacteristically solemn.

“I -” Salieri managed to bite down on his words, fighting off the impending sense of dread that had begun to coalesce deep within him. “What is it?”

“When all of this is over,” said Amadeus, and the corners of his lips twitched upward in the tiniest of smiles, “I want you to -”

  
  
  
  
  


“Will it fill our stomachs?” the Yaga girl asked, peering up at him with wide eyes.

Salieri glanced at her. The children from Chaldea had left, returned to sail in an imaginary sea; the light of day beginning to fade as the evening lowered like a curtain over those who remained. They crowded around him and the instrument in his hands. Besides this little Yaga girl, there were many others who stood amidst the wreckage of their capital, lost and afraid.

Now that everything was over, Salieri felt an odd sense of calm in his heart, an emotion that he had not felt in a long time. There was no more anger left in him. The embers had all been quelled by the falling snow.

It was imperfect, unpolished, but the opening notes to a familiar Requiem continued to ring in his ears. He had conducted for it once, and though the memories of that time were vague it was a music that had stayed inside him until his own death. Even beyond that, after he had melded with the false rumors surrounding his lifetime, Salieri still remembered Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

He had to fulfill his final promise to that man. There was one last score left for him to play.

Salieri settled himself on the piano chair. The instrument looked a little dirty from all the beating up it had already taken at his mercy, but its notes still rang clear in the wintery air.

“It might not fill you,” he said at last, to the Yaga girl.

She cocked her head, puzzled. “Then what does it do?”

Salieri smiled at her. The ease of the expression surprised even himself. How long had it been since he had genuinely expressed contentment?

“This,” said Salieri, his fingers pressed to the keys, “it is something that will satisfy you regardless.”

  
  
  
  
  


Salieri played. He played for no one. He played for all that would stop and listen.

He played until the Yaga were gone, vanished one by one into the night like they had been nothing more than a vague dream. He played under the cover of darkness, the composition of the song long-since memorized, under the watchful gaze of a river of twinkling stars. It was not an unkind light, Salieri thought. The stars were gentle and wondrous and far out of his reach. They reminded him too much of another person’s brilliance.

When the morning sun arose, the land was bathed in radiance. It did not take long for cracks to appear in the fabric of this particular world, spider-webbing across a pink-orange sky. Eventually it shattered open like a glass dome overhead, the crystalline shards raining down upon thick white snow.

Beneath the falling dawn, Antonio Salieri continued to play a song that would be swallowed by the quiet earth, surrounded by nothing but empty hills and barren trees. He was alone, save for the absent company of someone else’s fingers dancing in tune with his, stringing together a melody of gentle nighttime lights, of little stars; a duet that he had longed to play with this person, since so many years before.

  



End file.
